Dead Space: Equestria
by M306117
Summary: When nightmares start appearing all over Equestria, Twilight Sparkle and her friends cast an ancient spell in hopes of quelling them. They get a traumatised engineer and a remorseful soldier instead. With violence on the rise, widespread madness, and dark forces at work, the eight of them will have to race against time to end the madness and survive.
1. The Nightmares Begin

**AN: ****I don't own My Little Pony or Dead Space. They belong to Hasbro and EA/Visceral Games respectively.**

**The Nightmares Begin**

_It surged forward, a misshapen mass of flesh and bones and screeching, hurling itself ever closer to her. From what remained of its mouth were fangs stained with the blood of countless victims, arranged in a horrible grimace of a smile._

_Whatever eyes it had were bloodshot, glazed over, angry. They peered after her, following each movement she made and adjusting its course accordingly. It was like a rotten homing missile, locked squarely onto her and nothing short of complete destruction would stop it._

_From its body sprouted tentacles, blades made of bones, a foul stench of decay and malevolence. It was pure evil and it was coming after her._

_She glanced over her shoulder, breathing heavily and erratically, willing her hooves to go that bit faster and escape at the sight of that toothed smile almost upon._

_The thing screeched and leapt, blade slicing into her flesh and parting it with ease as a pain unlike any other she had experienced surged through her body, blood flying through the air in sickening slow motion, whatever dim light there was in this nightmarish landscape casting horrid, twisted shadows on walls covered in flesh, corrupted beyond recognition._

_She screamed, long and hard, in fear, pain, helplessness, watching in horror as her body was torn apart and devoured by this monster._

**Ponyville, Equestria**

Twilight Sparkle awoke from her dream with a start, eyes opening in seconds, and took a moment to get her bearings and get her breathing under control.

She let her eye rove over the walls of the room she was in, visually confirming it was in fact her room and not a tunnel or hallway covered in... something. She shivered at the fleeting images still lingering in her mind.

The walls had seemed to glisten and pulsate, oozing an unknown substance onto the floor where it collected and spread out, creating an equally disgusting carpet that stuck to her hooves.

Then there was the monster itself.

Misshapen, huge, violent, it was unlike anything Twilight had ever seen before. Not even Tirek had been so brutal and he was by far the most dangerous thing she had faced. The thing in her dream, it hadn't tried to talk with her, or capture the Alicorn princess. It had only tried to kill and maim her.

She shivered again despite the thick duvet covering her, now damp from sweat, and looked at her bedside clock.

Three in the morning.

She sighed.

This was the fourth night in a row that a nightmare had awoken her, each one different, yet similar.

A misshapen and twisted creature, sometimes alone and sometimes with others, chasing her through darkened and twisted hallways that were lined with flesh, always catching her and always ripping into her body.

The worst hadn't been of warped monsters killing her, but seeing a single, colossal, planet sized creature attacking her home planet, devouring everything on the surface and breaking it up. There had been a sense of overwhelming helplessness, rooted to the spot as Equestria was torn apart piece by piece, unable to do a thing to prevent it.

And in every dream she had heard only three coherent words. Make us Whole.

They were whispered, softly and gently, at odds with the horrendous screeches from the monsters, but the apparent serenity of the speaker just troubled Twilight further. It was almost like the monster was a conduit for the voice, carrying with it a message of unity while carrying out acts of barbaric violence. It was a horrible contradiction.

Twilight Sparkle looked at her clock again, tried to push the lingering snippets of her dream away, and decided to get a glass of water while she was up.

She used her magic to throw her duvet off and quietly got out of bed, taking care not to disturb the still sleeping Spike in his basket, and set out for the kitchen though couldn't quite recall the route.

Her home was new, barely ten days old, a replacement _castle_ that had literally sprung from the ground after her old home, a library, had been destroyed by Tirek and she was still getting used to the new layout.

It was bigger than her old home, much bigger, and made of a dark rock/crystal combination that looked magnificent in the light but in the dark, it just made walking around at night harder. To combat this, Twilight levitated a torch from the wall and lit it, gladly welcoming the illumination the flame offered.

The darkened hallways of her home reminded her too much of the nightmare and its monstrous denizen.

She tiptoed out of the bedroom and headed in what she hoped was the right direction, passing by windows that looked out over Ponyville, stunning views at any time of day and sometimes at night if the Weather Team had the sky cleared.

Left, left, right, up those stairs, down those, another right, and...

Twilight emerged into the throne room of her castle, seeing the seven chairs arranged in a circle around a golden disc on the floor, her cutie mark in the centre of it all.

It filled her with a sense of pride seeing all the chairs, where she and her five closest friends and Spike, her number one assistant, governed the Kingdom of Friendship though what that precisely meant right now was still vague and mainly, the seven of them just settled disputes as and when they showed up.

But this wasn't the kitchen and Twilight still wanted a glass of water.

She retraced her steps, going right where she went left and down where she went up, and found herself in the castle's vast kitchen.

Her next problem was locating the glasses and filling it up.

While it was nice and all that the Tree of Harmony had given her a new home, it had neglected to give her a map highlighting where everything was.

Before long, she had a glass and so began the arduous task of getting back to her room, by the end of which Twilight had drank her water and an urge to use the bathroom reared its head.

After several wrong turns and doubling back, Twilight finally made it back to her bed, pulling back the covers ready to get in, when something unexpectedly touched her leg.

She let out a faint yelp of surprise, initially thinking it was the monster from the dream, but a quick look back revealed it was nothing of the sort.

'Spike?' she whispered, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of the dragon. 'What's wrong?'

He kept one claw to his chest while the other scratched the back of his head, looking almost ashamed, and said, 'I had bad dream, Twilight. Well, I-I've been having them for a few days now and-' He took a breath and looked up at the princess. 'Can I sleep in your bed tonight?'

Twilight paused a moment then smiled, pulling the baby dragon into a brief hug.

'Of course, Spike. Just don't drool like you used to.'

'I don't drool,' Spike objected, climbing onto Twilight's bed after her and curling up beside the princess. 'I haven't in years.'

'So you say,' Twilight said, bringing the mattress over to cover them both.

It had been years since the two had shared a bed, way back when Spike was even younger, barely a year old if that, when the duo had been living in Canterlot and Twilight was still a unicorn.

Twilight couldn't help but feel another sense of pride in knowing she'd had a major part in Spike's growth. After all, she had hatched him as part of her entrance exam into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns and raised him pretty much since then.

'But, I've seen one or two damp patches on your blanket when I've walked past your basket before.'

Spike made some comment under his breath, blaming it on an ice cream dream or a leak in the roof, before settling down and drifting off to sleep.

Twilight watched him for a little while, a faint smile on her lips, but it soon turned to a frown when she heard Spike mutter 'Make us Whole' in his sleep, over and over again.

She had never mentioned her nightmares to him, or to anypony, so to hear him say those same three words and admit to having frequent nightmares made her worry. Something was wrong, very wrong, and Twilight made a mental note to investigate this further, to talk with her friends first thing in the morning.

A quick glance at her clock showed it was now creeping towards half past four and she groaned inwardly. It was barely three hours to the start of her normal day and between the nightmares, and now her new worry, the princess very much doubted she'd get any sleep at all between now and then.

**Ponyville, Equestria**

'Thank you all for coming,' a bleary eyed Twilight said as her five closest friends came in and sat down in their respective thrones, Spike settling next to her after serving coffee to the six ponies.

Each and every one of them, barring Pinkie Pie, seemed more lethargic than usual. There were bags under their eyes, they were more withdrawn, they weren't fully themselves.

Applejack and Fluttershy both yawned, not even trying to stifle them, and everypony leaned back in their chairs for support.

'Over the past week, we've all been having nightmares,' Twilight began to say once they were settled, skipping any pleasantries to get right to the matter at hand. 'And I don't mean just the seven of us. I've spoken with Princess Luna and she confirmed that all over Equestria, ponies are suffering the same nightmares. It's a pandemic.'

There was several seconds of silence.

'Uh, begging you're pardon, Twi,' Applejack said, breaking it. 'But how can a nightmare become a pandemic? It ain't exactly a bug or anything. And is the princess sure it's the same one?'

'She is, yes,' Twilight said with a nod. 'Being in a narrow passageway, chased by a monster, hearing Make us Whole. Everypony she's checked the dreams of is having the exact same one.'

'And how are we supposed to do something about it?' Rainbow Dash asked, using her hoof to indicate all of them. 'It's not like we can go into a pony's dreams like Princess Luna can.'

'Nor do we know what can affect everypony's dreams all at once,' Rarity added. 'It could be anything from a spell somepony cast going wrong to a side effect of having our magic drained by Tirek. Who knows what that might do to a pony's mental state.'

Twilight nodded her head in agreement. 'Princess Luna is going to investigate further from her end, see if she trace the source back to something, so we don't have to worry about that.'

'So why call us in, Twilight?' Fluttershy asked, taking a sip of her coffee. She sighed in appreciation at the taste and the follow up jolt of caffeine that help combat the fatigue she felt. 'If Princess Luna's looking into the dreams, what can we do?'

'Maybe we could hold a massive sleepover,' Pinkie Pie said before Twilight could explain. 'You know, invite a couple hundred of our best and closest friends, make a bunch of cupcakes and snacks, play games, everything that makes a sleepover fun!' She clapped her hooves together in excitement. 'We could make this the best sleepover ever! That way, we could make everypony feel loads better and it'd be a nice s-surprise!'

Ponyville's pink premier party planning pony fumbled over the last word, stuttering just a little, and quickly glanced around the room as though looking for something or somepony.

Everypony else took note of the fact but did little else, turning their attention back to Twilight as she waited for Pinkie Pie to finish.

'As I was about to say,' Twilight said. 'No, we won't be looking into the source of the nightmares because Luna can do that much easier than us. What we will be doing is scour the Castle of the Royal Pony Sister's library. Princess Celestia thinks that there's a book in there filled with dozens of old myths and legends, one of which mentioned something about widespread nightmares. It's a long shot but I think we might find something useful there.'

Rainbow Dash gave her a flat look. 'Equestria is suffering from a nightmare pandemic and you want us to scour an old library to find a book filled with even older stories? As in, half forgotten things blown way out of proportion by ponies that weren't even there?'

'Well, yes,' Twilight said. 'I mean, you all thought Nightmare Moon was a legend, right? Look how that turned out. All myths have to start somewhere. Who's to say this is any different?'

The Pegasus tried to find fault with that logic, comparing what the legend said about Nightmare Moon to what actually happened when she reappeared and plunged Equestria into night, but couldn't.

'Alright, I can see your point,' she said. 'But do you really think we'll find exactly what we're looking for in that place?'

'There's no harm in trying, darling,' Rarity said. 'Besides, that castle has such gorgeous drapes. I could come away with some new inspiration for my fall line!'

'So long as it doesn't come from a scary looking book,' Twilight said, mostly to Spike who grinned sheepishly and sat down lower.

'I know, I know,' he said. 'Don't take anything from the library without asking you first. I heard you the first twelve times.'

Twilight glowered at him for a second longer then smiled at the dragon, getting to her hooves and saying, 'Okay, everypony. Let's get to that castle and find that book.'

**Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, the Everfree Forest**

The stone structure stood proud on its own little island, accessible only by a rope bridge that had stood for an untold number of years, though bore scars of a battle fought long ago between Celestia and Luna.

Its roof was little more than a memory and trees, moss, and vines all crept up the stone walls, completing the look of decay and abandonment.

The six ponies and one dragon paid the outward appearance little attention and followed a path they had all gone down many times before, passing by and through rooms with vaulted ceilings, ornate wall ornaments and statues, and windows devoid of the stained glass they once bore.

Once they were inside the library, they all dispersed and took a different section of the room for themselves.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy looked up high while Applejack and Pinkie Pie searched low, with Rarity and Twilight using their magic to grab books from anywhere on the stone shelves and arrange them in haphazard heaps on the floor.

'Hard to believe it's been barely two weeks since we were all in here, doing just this,' Applejack said as she leafed through a dusty tome, quickly scanning the contents of each page for any kind of mention of a pandemic nightmare, tossing it to one side when her search delivered no results.

Twilight nodded, looking through three different books at once, all of them floating before her, replacing them as and when she finished. 'And we still haven't read through them all. There's just so much to choose from. It's fascinating to see how ancient cultures dealt with things, how different they are to modern methods. I could spend a whole week here reading everything.'

'So why don't you?' Spike said from his own pile of books. 'It'd be like a vacation for you.'

He closed one book with a snap, causing a huge plume of dust to waft out and rise up to his nose.

'Oh, no,' Spike said as his nose began twitching, the beginnings of a sneeze coming on. 'I hate it when... this... happens!'

The dragon finally succumbed to the dust's irritation and let loose an almighty sneeze, breathing out a huge green flame and almost catching Rainbow Dash's tail as she came down to deposit some more books for Pinkie Pie to go through.

She yelled in surprise and managed to avoid the fire, barely, and glared down at Spike who laughed nervously.

'Sorry,' he said, selecting another book and opening with one claw while the other pinched his nose shut.

The Pegasus rolled her eyes and flew off to another section of the library.

'Found a book on old myths!' Applejack called out, pointing her hoof at a thick leather bound item. 'Don't know if it's the one we want or not.'

'It's a start,' Twilight said, trotting over. 'Keep looking and see if there are any others like this.'

'Sure thing,' the farmer said as Twilight used her magic to pull the book out and carry it over to a nearby table, flicking it open to the index page.

'Myths about nightmares,' the princess murmured to herself, scanning the faded script for something, anything. 'Let's see, we have entries on ancient monsters, dragon kings, lost cities, ghost ships, time travelling aliens in blue boxes, and intergalactic hitchhikers. Wait, what?'

She reread that last one, making doubly sure it said what she thought it did, then turned to the appropriate page to find out what it meant.

'Two friends banded together in the hopes of finding out the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, constructing a huge magically powered device to call out to any crafts of alien origin in orbit around the planet in hopes of hitching a lift,' Twilight read. 'Not much is known past this as the machine burst in flames upon activation and exploded, leaving behind only a box containing forty-two balls arranged in a six by seven square and a towel.

'Many believe that the two ponies were consumed by the blast, but some continue to hold out that the succeeded in hailing an alien craft and managed to find their answer.'

She shook her head and went back to the index but saw nothing relating to nightmares of any kind, and Twilight discarded the book and went back to finding one that did.

**Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, the Everfree Forest**

The day dragged on, producing no useful results, and the sun had begun its descent when a book mentioning widespread nightmares was finally located.

Fluttershy carried it down from the shelf and placed it gingerly on top of a pile of books. All the tables were swamped under discarded items, the shelves surrounding them now sparse and empty.

It creaked slightly when opened, revealing yellowed pages and faded script, but the six ponies and lone dragon crowded around it anyway, trying to read its contents.

_Mythical Ailments and Conundrums, _the front page said. _From the mundane to the insane, this book should be your first stop for solving all things you do not understand, nor can explain. Be it physical, mental, or spiritual, the solutions contained within these pages will put you at ease._

'Great,' Rainbow Dash said. 'We've gotten our hooves on an ancient copy of Supernaturals.'

'And we all know how well it worked,' Rarity said, stroking her hair. 'That herbal bath remedy we got from it was simply divine.'

They went back to the book, skipping ahead to the section on recurring and widespread nightmares.

_Sometimes referred to as the Moon's Vengeance, this ailment has been in Equestrian history since before Queen Aurora's time, dating back to even before the beginning of recorded history. Legend states that during Equestria's forming, thousands upon thousands of evil spirits were sucked up into the sky along with a mysterious object known only as an Obelisk to form the moon that now orbits overhead._

_It is said that every few thousand years, the Moon awakens and the evil contained within it descends on Equestria, plaguing the world with nightmares and intrusive thoughts, driving the inhabitants crazy and thus getting its Vengeance for being locked away._

_To date, there has never been a documented instance of Moon's Vengeance but its remedy has been passed down through the generations in preparation for its eventual resurgence, though due to the complex and highly unknown nature of the spell, as it has never been cast, the actual cure is unknown._

_All we at Mythical Ailments and Conundrums can say is, tread carefully._

The text stopped was replaced with a full page diagram of the spell and Twilight poured over it, taking in every little detail, wincing once the full scope of the spell became apparent.

'They weren't kidding,' she said. 'This spell, it's unlike anything I've ever seen before. The concentration needed for it alone is beyond staggering, as is the power.' She scanned it more fully. 'I don't even know what it'll do.'

'Can you cast it?' Spike asked, peering up at the Alicorn.

'I'll try,' Twilight said. 'You might want to stand back, though.'

She picked the book up with her magic and walked into the centre of the library, right beneath a hole in the roof. Overhead, a few clouds drifted lazily across the blue sky and off in the distance, a number of birds were signing to one another.

Twilight tuned it all out, focusing on nothing but the spell in front of her.

She had never before attempted something so complex, nor so physically demanding on her magic, but she was the Bearer of the Element of Magic, and her cutie mark was all about magic.

If anypony could do it, it was her.

The others kept well back, watching with equal parts fascination and concern as Twilight's horn began crackling with energy, a bright white ball forming at the tip that seemed to pulsate in time with her breathing.

A lance of energy jumped off it and went straight for the nearest metal object, the clasp of a book sat on a table, and scorched it as more energy crackled over the princess's body and make some errant strand of hair stand up.

The light from her horn continued to grow, getting brighter and brighter, as the mare suddenly began floating in midair, eyes scrunched shut in concentration, before they opened to reveal pure white light spilling out of them.

The ponies and Spike jumped back in surprise as the ball of energy expanded, then contracted, then burst upwards as a solid purple beam that cut through one cloud, vaporising it, and carried on into the sky and, more likely than not, straight into space.

This lasted for all but a few seconds, utterly silent despite their worst fears, and Twilight fell back to the ground and collapsed in exhaustion.

Her friends rushed to her side as she cracked one eye open, looking up at them.

'Did it work?' she asked. 'Did we stop the nightmares?'

They looked at each other and shrugged, feeling no different than they had before Twilight cast the spell.

'Dunno,' Applejack said. 'Maybe it takes time or we can't feel it.' She helped Twilight up, steadying the mare as she wavered on her hooves. 'Ah guess we'll know tonight if we have any more nightmares or not.'

'I guess,' Twilight agreed. She tried to pick the book up with her magic but only managed a few errant sparks.

'I got it,' Spike said, jogging over to pick the book up off the floor. 'I can take this book out of the library, right? I mean, you did tell me not to without asking first.'

'Yes, you can take it out, Spike,' Twilight said with a smile. 'This time.'

The seven cast one final look around the library, at the books strewn haphazardly across the floor and tables, but decided against tidying them away today. It was late, they were tired, they wanted to go home and get some rest.

Besides, they'd done all they could to help stop the nightmares though from here on out, it was in Luna's hooves to find out where they came from.

**Canterlot, Equestria**

Luna paced in her room, thinking over the rash of nightmares that had engulfed Equestria.

The night was her domain. It had always been hers, and the dreams of everypony were Luna's as well. She oversaw them all, allayed whatever fears they may have had, and help the pony face whatever was causing their bad dream.

But what was happening all over Equestria was not sporadic, nor did it have a single common fear, and it was definitely not the work of Tirek.

Ponies who had managed to avoid the power hungry centaur and kept their innate magic were suffering the nightmares too, so it had nothing to do with being drained, so what was causing it?

She settled on her bed and prepared to go into her dream state, a strange experience of leaving her body behind and becoming a mass of incorporeal energy that could go into anypony's dream she wanted, even those of her sister.

Luna let her form drift across Equestria, feeling the different dreams of the ponies that lived there. All were of the same thing, running through a hallway while being chased by a monster, so she didn't have to exert herself to find the dream she wanted.

She chose one dream at random and went into it, seeing the hallway and it's disgusting decorations materialise before her eyes.

The pony whose dream this was, a lightish-red stallion with a doughnut cutie mark, ran past her screaming, followed closely by the monster, both of whom failed to notice the Alicorn standing before them.

She watched them carry on up the hallway for a second or two then turned her attention to locating the source of the dream. It had to be coming from somewhere out in Equestria, some central location she could find and then dispatch Twilight Sparkle and her friends to and let them deal with it.

Well, she could find it, tell her sister, and let her dispatch Twilight Sparkle to deal with it.

Luna pushed that thought out of her head and began searching for the source, letting her magic probe the dream in hopes of rooting out the nightmare's source. Wherever it was coming from had to be on the planet, had to have an identifiable location, a distinct pattern-

There.

It was faint, barely perceptible with the noise from the monster echoing down the hall of the high pitched screams of the stallion drowning everything out, but now that Luna had caught a snippet of it, she could tune everything out to bring it up.

Everything began fading, the screams, the hallway, everything but the source.

To Luna, as the source of the nightmare became more apparent, it sounded more and more like pure noise, unintelligible and unidentifiable, but it was a start and Luna left the dream and followed the noise, her ghostly form travelling along the stream.

Each passing moment made the noise grow louder and louder until it became too painful to endure, but still the princess pressed on, eventually seeing an oddly familiar mountain appear out of the darkness before her.

She recognised as being the mountain Canterlot was built on, and she even spied one or two of the spires that adorned the city poking out above the ridge, and briefly worried that somepony in the city, or worse the castle, was responsible for the nightmares, though these worries were briefly alleviated when the noise suddenly made a turn somewhere inside the mountain and went straight up.

Her worries then came back, and in greater force, as Luna suddenly found herself flying towards the moon.

Her moon.

She rode the noise right into the moon, encountered some strange and sinister force, then felt that same sinister force push her back down to the ground and to Canterlot where her body was still lying atop her bed.

Luna felt it and her mind rejoin, eyes opening in an instant, and rushed to the balcony that overlooked Canterlot, and craned her neck skyward to look at the moon.

'Beautiful, isn't it?' a voice from behind Luna said. 'You did always know how to make the sky beautiful.'

Luna span around in alarm, her horn glowing with magic. She had expressly told the guards to not let anypony in until she said otherwise so as to not disturb her concentration.

'Who's there?' she said, scanning the darkened interior of her room for the speaker. 'I demand you show yourself.'

'Of course, my little moonbeam,' the unknown visitor said in a hauntingly familiar voice.

Luna tried to place then froze upon realising who it was, her shock becoming more pronounced when a figure stepped out of the shadows and into the light, a smile on their face.

'Mother?' Luna whispered, not believing the sight before her. 'I-Is that you?'

The figure, a unicorn mare, came fully into the light and gave Luna a warm smile.

'Yes, my child,' she said. 'It is.'

She came a little closer and placed a hoof in Luna's face, caressing it as disbelief and shock continued to play across the Alicorn's face.

'But... you're dead,' Luna finally managed to whisper. 'You have been for thousands of years.'

'I know,' Aurora said.

'How can you be here then?' Luna asked. Tears were starting to form in her eyes as Aurora her hoof away.

'I'm here to tell you something important,' Aurora said, walking to the balcony with Luna in tow.

Together, they looked out across the streets of Canterlot, at the ponies braving the cold night to meet friends or were on their way back from the theatre.

'What would you give, Luna, to see me and your father again?' Aurora asked, looking at her daughter. 'To see everypony you knew and loved once more and for the rest of time?'

'Anything,' Luna said, taking a step closer to her mother. She reached out with a hoof and touched the unicorn's chest, pressing firmly against it to be sure this wasn't a hallucination. 'I would give anything to see you and father again.'

Aurora smiled again and drew Luna into a hug, gently shushing the princess as the tears that had been threatening to fall finally did. 'There, there, my little moonbeam. It's alright. It's okay.'

'I missed you,' Luna whispered, sagging against her mother. 'Ever since you died, I never felt loved. It was all about Celestia. She was the centre of attention.'

'I know,' Aurora said. 'That's why I came to you, my child. I know I can count on you to do what needs to be done. Celestia would never agree to have her position as Equestria's favoured ruler overthrown, to give up everypony's adoration. She would only try to stop us.'

'Us?' Luna said, glancing upwards.

'Yes, my child,' Aurora whispered. 'You and I, together again. Celestia doesn't need to know. She cannot know. She would do anything in her power to banish you to the moon again.'

The Alicorn flinched at the thought, at being sent back to the moon again for another thousand years, but the mention of it brought back to the forefront of her mind her earlier discoveries.

'The moon,' she began to say. 'It's-'

'Part of what you need to do,' Aurora said, gently cutting off her daughter. 'These nightmares that are happening all over Equestria, they're part of the process. You need to free the Moon and Make us Whole. That way we can be together again.'

'Free the moon?' Luna repeated. 'What- How do I do that?'

'You have to find the Obelisk,' Aurora said, using her magic to conjure up a ghostly image of two spires wrapped around each other, their surfaces covered in mysterious glyphs. 'Find the Obelisk and bring six ponies to it. Only then can we free the Moon and be Made Whole.'

Luna looked at the image, captivated by both its stunning simplicity and intricate decorations, and suddenly found her legs growing weak. She sagged to the floor as Aurora continued to stand there, that same warm smile she'd always had on her face when Luna was a young filly.

To see her again, to see father and everypony else she'd lost, it was almost too good to be true.

But there was one thing about her mother that Luna was sure about, and that was she never told her a lie.

'How do I find it?' Luna asked, tearing her gaze from the Obelisk to her mother. 'Tell me, mother. Tell me what I can do to find it and free the Moon.'

Aurora's smile broadened and she knelt next to Luna. 'There are books somewhere, old ones, that contain hidden secrets telling you how to find the entrance to the Obelisk's resting place. Find them, find the entrance, and then bring the six ponies to it. The Obelisk will take care of the risk and we will be made whole again.' She placed a tender kiss on Luna's head before standing.

'Which ponies, mother?' Luna asked. 'Which six?'

'You know them, my precious moonbeam,' Aurora said as she began walking backwards, towards the shadows. 'But you must hurry. They have already started searching for a means of stopping us. You must find the entrance before they can do any further harm.'

Luna nodded slowly, watching as her mother was slowly absorbed by the darkness.

'I love you, my child,' Aurora's voice whispered from all around her. 'Find the Obelisk and we can be made whole once more. Find it. Make us Whole.'

'I will, momma,' Luna whispered back. 'I will.'

The voice didn't answer back and Luna was once again left alone in her room, left to contemplate her mother's instructions.

She had to search the archives, find those books, and to keep it from Celestia. She would no doubt try to stop and lock her away again, ensuring her complete rule for another thousand years.

Luna couldn't let that happen. She had to see her mother again, see everypony again, and nopony would stop her from achieving that.

She got to her hooves and walked to the door.

Her first priority would be to search the archives, find anything she could on the Obelisk or where it could be.

Twilight Sparkle and her friends could wait.


	2. Heretics and Murderers

**AN: ****I don't own My Little Pony or Dead Space. They belong to Hasbro and EA/Visceral Games respectively.**

**Heretics and Murderers**

**CMS **_**Terra Nova, **_**Shockspace near Earth**

There was just a quiet hum from the centuries old computers filling the cockpit and a distant rumble from the reactors, located far to the back of the two-hundred year old ship, as Isaac Clarke scanned the screens before him, watching them for any signs of danger or errors, while beside him John Carver slept.

Both men were exhausted, having spent what felt like days on the frozen hellhole known as Tau Volantis fighting through the Necromorphs to try and finally put an end to the Marker epidemic that stood ready to wipe humanity from the universe forever.

This was the first real quiet moment they'd gotten since shocking out from the New Horizons Lunar Colony, to rest without fearing a slasher would appear from nowhere and try to kill them.

Isaac tapped at a few things on the screens, the light from the Shockspace vortex surrounding them filtering in through the _Terra Nova_'s main viewport and catching his archaeologist suit, highlighting the blood and gore spattered over its orange surface and showing up clearly.

Carver was wearing a hostile environment suit, looted from the alien ruins deep beneath Tau Volantis to replace his badly damaged Special Forces suit. Its brown surface did a marginally better job at hiding the blood, but not by much.

Between the men were their weapons, heavily modified and heavily relied upon during their hellish trek through the snow, ice, and Necromorphs.

They had been pretty much standard, if not repurposed, weapons to begin with but thanks in part to leftover parts from the SCAF expedition to Tau Volantis and Isaac's own acumen as an engineer, the items that lay next to him and Carver were near enough perfect at dismembering Necros and making sure they stayed down.

Isaac's weapon was a plasma cutter, modified to have a boosted re-fire rate, a larger power storage capacity to boost the number of shots, and posses a much more deadly shot, all of which was boosted by a new tip he'd discovered aboard the _Roanoke_.

Carver had jokingly referred to it as a planet cracker plasma cutter given how easily it tore through limbs, the name somehow sticking until both Isaac and Carver called it as such.

Next to the Planet Cracker were Carver's two weapons, one of which was a plasma cutter like Isaac's but without the special tip. Neither man had found another and had lacked the time and resources to make another.

Instead, he had used the tip Isaac had replaced while also keeping his bullpup rifle though Isaac had modified that as well to increase the damage output and add a small attachment that lit its bullets on fire, causing a small but often crucial amount of extra damage to the horribly mutated Necromorphs.

It was still his main weapon, the plasma cutter taking on the role of a pistol stand in, a remainder of his background of a soldier.

Isaac glanced at a screen to his left and tapped in a few commands, looking at the contents, then turned to his sleeping partner.

'Carver,' he said. 'Psst, hey Carver. We're almost there.'

The sergeant jerked himself awake, staring out at the blue vortex of Shockspace, then moved his head around to Isaac and said, 'What, we made it?'

'Yeah, Isaac said with a smile and a nod, relief surging through their tired bodies.

'I don't believe it,' Carver said as a smile tugged at his scarred face, looking out the viewport again as Isaac typed in the commands to start the process of bringing the ship back to normal space.

The computer's voice, flat and monotone, began counting down.

'De-shocking to Earth space in three, two one...'

There was a brief flash of light as the blue light faded away, replaced with a brighter white one that too faded away, revealing the Earth and its Moon hanging right before the _Terra Nova._

Isaac laughed in triumph and powered up the centuries old communication system, hailing the planet.

'Earth Orbital Control, this is Isaac Clarke aboard the CMS _Terra Nova, _requesting clearance. Over.'

A brief wash of static came over the radio then silence, but no confirmation anyone had heard him. He frowned and tapped the controls again as Carver groaned and got up from his chair, walking over to Isaac's side.

'You sure you got the right channel?' Carver asked as he came to a halt behind Isaac's chair. 'This is over two hundred years old.'

Isaac briefly looked up at him then went back to the interface, saying, 'Yeah. No, I changed it over right... trust me. Trust me, it's right.'

As Isaac typed in more commands, Carver leaned closer to another screen and brought up another channel.

'EarthGov Command, this is Sergeant John Carver,' he radioed. 'Do you read me? Is anyone there?'

The screen flashed an error message, prompting Isaac to tap it in hopes of making it work but when it did nothing, he turned to another.

'It's weird,' Carver said as the engineer tried a different channel.

'United Mining traffic flow, do you copy?' Isaac asked as Carver tried to make his screen work, getting the same error warning as Isaac punched in a new frequency.

'Luna Flight Control, this is CMS _Terra Nova, _does anyone read us out there?'

For several seconds there was nothing, just static, then, as if to answer their questions, the unmistakeable screech from a Necromorph cut through the silence and both Isaac and Carver looked at each other in shock and alarm, their gazes swivelling almost unwittingly to the viewport where, from the far side of Earth, a Brethren Moon seemed to rise up, its massive tentacles scouring the surface of the planet and sucking everything in its path up.

'Oh, god,' Carver said quietly, the enormity of what they were seeing muting all emotion.

'Oh, no,' Isaac said in a similar tone of voice, neither man reacting as another Brethren Moon rose up from below and approached their ship.

When the sight of the planetoid Necromorph approaching them kicked in, Isaac and Carver threw their hands up in a futile attempt to protect themselves as their ship began quaking and rumbling, massive tentacles miles long and wide snaked towards the _Terra Nova, _reaching out for them, as a blinding flash of light shone in through the viewport and engulfed everything.

**CMS **_**Terra Nova, **_**Shockspace**

For the second time that day, silence reigned supreme as Isaac and Carver remained locked in place, arms raised to ward off the moon that was no longer there, replaced by the blue void of Shockspace.

Carver recovered first, staring through the toughened glass in disbelief, and said, 'Wha... What the hell? Isaac, what?'

Isaac didn't respond to begin with, sharing Carver's disbelief that they'd somehow avoided death without knowing how.

He recovered and scanned through the screens set before him, bringing up the power readings for the ship.

'How the hell did we jump to Shockspace?' Carver asked, leaning over Isaac's chair to try and make sense of the information and charts. 'I thought the reactor couldn't handle another jump.'

'I... don't know,' Isaac finally said, cycling through everything twice over. 'Everything was reading normal until the Moon came up and...'

He trailed off, hand falling from the screen into his lap as it finally clicked.

'Oh, god. The Earth.' He turned to look up at Carver, the realisation dawning on him as well. 'It's gone, Carver. The Moons... they'll suck it dry, just like they tried to do on Tau Volantis and everywhere else they've been.'

'Fuck,' Carver said, hand going to his mouth. 'Christ, what do we do? Where can we go?'

'I... I don't know,' Isaac said. 'The Moons will home in on all the Markers EarthGov made, sucking up everything. We can't stop them, not now. Earth is done for. We're done for.'

Carver let his hand drop and stepped away from Isaac before turning back, resolution in his eyes. 'No, we can't be the last ones left. There'll be people out in deep space, doing planet cracks and stuff. The Moons only went for the Markers, right? Then they'll have probably missed a few ships well away from any colonies.'

'Yeah,' Isaac said, nodding his head. 'Yeah. If we can find one, tell them what happened, we can find a... a planet somewhere, start anew. No more Markers, no more Moons. We can put everything behind us.'

'Yeah, good plan,' Carver said before pointing to the Shockspace vortex out the front window. 'Now we just need to figure out where the fuck that came from, how the fuck we managed to jump to it in the first place, and where the fuck we're going.'

Isaac nodded again, returning to the computer screens and searching through them all again.

'There's not much in the system,' he said after a few moments. 'The power for the ShockPoint Drive came from somewhere outside the ship, bypassing the reactor completely which is shot all to hell. There's no way that's ever gonna work again without new parts. All we've got left is the reserve power.'

'Alright,' Carver said. 'Does that include the engines 'cause I'm pretty sure wherever we end up, we're gonna need a way to move or we'll be dead in space.'

He didn't see Isaac flinch at little at those words, looking out the viewscreen, but the engineer did another systems check, this time paying attention to the thrusters mounted to the back of the ship.

'Limited,' Isaac said. 'We've got maybe twenty percent impulse power, no ShockPoint Drive, but plenty of manoeuvring thrusters.'

'Great,' Carver said. 'We can spin like a top to our hearts content.'

Isaac just shook his head and kept cycling through the systems, trying to gain an insight to where they may be or what might have caused the ship to receive a huge jolt of power, but nothing gave him any answers so he resigned himself to sitting back in his chair, Carver doing the same, and wait for the ship to finish its journey towards the unknown.

**CMS **_**Terra Nova, **_**Shockspace**

'De-shocking in ten seconds.'

The flat voice of the ship's computer jerked Isaac awake, banishing the nightmares of his time aboard the _Ishimura_ to the next time he fell asleep, and he blinked rapidly, clearing his eyes as the countdown continued.

Beside him, Carver was waking up as well and both men focused their attentionon the forward viewscreen as the computer continued its countdown to zero, the usual flash of white replacing the blue, preceding real space by a few scant seconds.

The _Terra Nova _shook a little then settled, giving both men a clear look at a single planet just hanging before them.

It appeared similar to the Earth of the past, covered in lush green forests and a blanket of white clouds, things that had long since vanished from humanity's home planet thanks to rapid overpopulation and a depletion of natural resources.

'Anything on the charts?' Carver asked, breaking the silence.

'Uh...' Isaac said, snapping out of his haze.

He shook his head and tapped at the controls, bringing up the navigation system in hopes that they could get a fix off the star positions or at the very least, figure out how far they were from Earth.

The screen came up blank.

'Nothing,' Isaac said. 'This place, wherever it is, isn't in any of the _Terra Nova_'s databases.'

'It is over two-hundred years old,' Carver murmured. 'And I doubt people rushed to Tau Volantis with map updates as soon as they came out. We could be somewhere they found after the SCAF went off on their little expedition and not even know it.'

'Well if that's the case, it wouldn't hurt to see if anyone's listening out there.'

Carver nodded in agreement as Isaac powered up the communications system, sending out a distress call on all known channels as far as they could possibly reach.

Any ships in the local system would pick it up, giving their crews the basic location of the _Terra Nova, _but for it to work they would have to be ships nearby in the first place.

After ten solid minutes there was no reply and a quick search of communication satellites revealed none, casting doubts on Carver's theory that this planet had been discovered during the _Terra Nova_'s isolation above Tau Volantis.

'Worth a shot,' Carver said as Isaac powered the Com system down, jutting his chin at the planet. 'So what can we tell about that place down there?'

'Uh, not a whole lot,' Isaac said. 'Give me a second to-'

A jolt of movement cut him off, throwing him and Carver to one side and shifting their view of the planet.

Isaac recovered and reviewed the status.

'Tell me that was a good thing,' Carver said, tightening his restraints.

'Uh...' the engineer said.

'Oh, Christ,' Carver muttered. 'Isaac. Are we. In. Trouble?'

'Kind of,' he said. 'You know that twenty percent thruster power I told you about earlier? We don't have that anymore. Looks like it was just a bit of feedback from whatever powered up the ShockPoint Drive. We've got nothing.'

Carver swore. 'So what, we're crash landing on that fucking planet?'

He pointed out the window to the orb hanging before them, growing larger and larger with each passing second.

Isaac didn't say anything, prompting another round of swearing from the soldier.

'Is this thing even rated for atmosphere?' Carver asked as gravity more thoroughly asserted its hold on the hulking ship and dragged them ever closer.

'We're about to find out,' Isaac said, his helmet sliding into place and protecting his face.

Carver did the same, both their faces covered by metal and lights.

For Isaac, they were a forgiving blue while for Carver, they were a menacing red.

The _Terra Nova _began shaking more often, violently at times, likely coming into contact with the planet's outer atmosphere.

Both men held on tight, recalling their last attempt at re-entry in a centuries old craft and how well that had gone for them. They hoped the _Terra Nova _was more robust that the _Crozier _had been, seeing as they were flying into an unknown planet without a flight path, nor did they know about any possible objects that might rise up to meet them and smash through their ancient ship.

'This could get a little rough,' Isaac said needlessly as the shaking increased, acceleration starting to press both him and Carver back into their seats.

'No shit,' the EarthGov soldier said. 'Hey, maybe we'll be saved by fucking aliens again and we won't have to risk freezing our assess off to fix our suits.'

The beginning wisps of flame began licking at the bottom edges as the fast moving and blocky ship encountered growing resistance from the increasing air pressure, causing the internal temperature to begin to climb and shake the ship even further.

'Hey, Isaac!' Carver called out over the growing rumbles and screeching. 'Can't you stabilise our flight path or something? I really don't think this ship was made to kiss an atmosphere.'

A loud clang resonated throughout the hull, followed by a dozen or so error warnings flashing across every screen in front of Isaac and Carver.

'No good,' Isaac said, reading through as many of the messages as he could. 'Controls aren't responding.'

The _Terra Nova _felt like it was teetering.

It was coming in at an oblique angle similar to the space shuttles of old, the weight and mass of its engineering section causing the bow to rise upwards but the four fins sticking out of the back creating too much lift to prevent it outright from falling stern first.

A keen groan cut through the noise as yet another warning appeared, this one alerting Isaac of the structural stress being placed on the _Terra Nova_'s dorsal structure, likely never designed to endure such forces.

'Uh, you might want to hold onto something,' Isaac warned as the groaning increased.

'Really?' Carver said sarcastically. 'I never would have thought of that.'

Deceleration tugged at the ship as its speed bled off, entering the thick atmosphere, and pings from cracking bulkheads and the screech of tearing hull plates told both men they weren't out of danger yet.

'Hull breach, multiple sections,' the ship's computer announced in its monotone voice. 'Superstructure at risk, failure imminent. Reactor offline, operating on reserve power.'

'More good news!' Carver shouted as the ground came into view some miles below them and flashing by awfully fast.

'Just hold on!' Isaac shouted back.

An altimeter appeared on both their screens, the numbers rolling back too quickly to be safe, reaching ground level in what could have only been seconds.

Because the _Terra Nova _had come in with her stern low, it had been the first part of the ship to touch down.

The bottom two fins made contact first, gouging huge trenches into the ground and rapidly slowed the ship with enough force to slam the bow down hard enough to shatter the viewport, spraying glass all over the bridge and making Isaac and Carver throw their arms up on reflex.

It also had the unintended side effect of finally snapping the already weakened dorsal structure and splitting the _Terra Nova _into two halves, small debris falling to the ground where it was lost form sight.

Both halves of what had been the SCAF's primary cargo ship continued on their own trajectories, rolling and bouncing through what had been a still and peaceful countryside, spewing smoke and flinging torn off pieces everywhere.

The heavy, more oddly shaped engineering section stopped first, fire coming out of almost every hole created during its rough landing, their combined smoke creating a stack miles out and pitch black, while the more round bow carried on for a few seconds more, coming to a rest upside down and halfway into a large lake, the water hissing against the hot hull and seeping into the cracks and holes.

Inside the bridge, Isaac and Carver hung limply in their chairs, knocked unconscious by the impacts.

Carver awoke first, groaning and moving sluggishly as sparks burst from a number of broken monitors and exposed conduits while all around them, the hull continued to creak and groan as it cooled and contracted.

He groaned again and shook his head trying to clear it, then groped for the release button on his harness.

It came apart with a muted click and Carver fell head first to the deck, landing with a solid thump and groan of pain.

He sat up, helmet folding away to let him cough up something and spit it out, then scrabbled around in the low light for his and Isaac's guns.

The engineer came to shortly after, groaning much like Carver had, staring around the cockpit at the devastation.

'I'm never flying with you again,' Carver said, coughing. 'You're a bad luck charm when it comes to flying.'

'And Markers,' Isaac added, undoing his restraints and falling to the floor with just as much grace as Carver. 'I destroyed two.'

'Three if you count the one in the Moon,' Carver said, locating the Planet Cracker and tossing it to Isaac who checked it over.

Aside from a few scuffs and some minor dents it was fine.

Isaac sighed. 'Too bad we couldn't destroy all the other ones.'

Carver located his guns, checked them for damage, then limped over to Isaac, patting him on the shoulder.

'Hey, we did the best we could,' he said. 'Those Moons, they were just better. Maybe if we'd had a faster ship, maybe if the ShockPoint drive on that dropship we took hadn't burned out, things might have been different. But we tried our best and no one can blame us for that.'

He couldn't tell what Isaac's expression was like behind his suit's mask but judging by the soft chuckle that escaped past it, Carver guessed the engineer agreed.

'You alright?' Isaac asked, seeing Carver's limp.

'Yeah,' Carver said, waving him off. 'Just landed on it funny. Nothing feels broken. I'm not gonna waste a med pack on it.'

Isaac nodded in agreement then said, 'Speaking of, we should probably start seeing what kind of supplies survived the crash. If we're going to be here for a while, we might as well see what we can use.'

'Good idea,' Carver said. 'Alright, you try and see what's still working while I look for a way out of here. Don't wanna go through everything we did for it to end here.'

**Outside the CMS **_**Terra Nova**_

To say the inside of the bridge had been a wreck, the outside was a disaster.

When the ship had split in two, both halves had gone on wildly chaotic and independent paths with the front half landing in a lake.

Fires were coming out of most holes in the dented and scorched hull with torn plating littering the roughly carved trench that signalled the broken bow's last route, dirt and earth piled high on both sides of the path, while a kilometre or so behind it was the engineering section.

Compared to the small but numerous fires coming from the fore section, the compartment that had housed the _Terra Nova_'s engines and reactor was single massive geyser of flame, the air above it thick with black smoke.

Carver traced it upwards as he and Isaac took a moment after having cut their way out of the _Terra Nova _and said, 'When we get rescued and they come down for us in ships, we're going in separate ones.'

'What if they only have the one ship?' Isaac asked.

'Then you're going up second,' Carver said. 'But I am not flying with you ever again.'

They stared at the mass of smoke and fire for a second then took off in the opposite direction, following one of the many streams and rivers that fed into the lake they'd crashed into.

'You think there's any life down here?' Carver asked as they walked along the bank, masks folded away and whatever supplies they could scavenge from the ancient ship slung over both their shoulders in two shacks.

'There must be something,' Isaac said. 'Whatever dumped all that power into the reactor had to come from somewhere, and I'm guessing it came from here. Why else would we de-shock above this planet?'

'Ran out of power?' Carver said, shrugging.

'Right above a habitable planet?' Isaac said. 'The chances of that are pretty low.'

Carver shrugged again. 'I quit trying to make sense of it all back on Tau Volantis.'

That got a short laugh from Isaac but it soon petered out, letting the sounds of the forest they were walking in fill their ears.

The calls of birds and shouts from unseen animals was a rare sound for either of them to hear, the natural forests of Earth and every other planet humanity had settled on having been wiped out long ago, replaced by cold and featureless structures and pollution.

To see so many lush trees, hear so many natural noises, was astounding.

'Let's get moving,' Carver,' Isaac said. 'No telling what might come out after dark.'

'Can't be any worse than Necromorphs,' Carver muttered, pressing on deeper into the forest but both he and Isaac gripped their weapons a little tighter, just in case something did come for them as overhead, the sun began its descent and the moon came out.


End file.
